As if this is any surprise to anyone in the Internet know, Google’s revenues will continue to grow in 2012 but eMarketer expects that Microsoft will eventually surpass Google’s growth rate 2013 and 2014. Still, they point out, by that time Google will command 10 times the search ad revenue that Microsoft will claim.

Even with Microsoft’s greater growth rate in the next few years, Google will undoubtedly remain atop the search ad market in the United States. eMarketer expects that Google will collect 77.9% of all U.S. search ad revenues this year and, by 2014, its total market share will be 79.8%. In a bit of good news for Microsoft, who seems to be a fatal second place to Google in search ad revenue, eMarketer anticipates that the company will pull further ahead from Yahoo! and AOL as both of the latter companies are expected to lose “more than half” of their search ad revenues between 2011 and 2014.

Given that Google’s ad revenue growth over the next three years is expected to drop off precipitously, I wonder if it’s just a symptom of Google peaking. There’s only so much you can advertise, right? Then again, maybe since this is a big year for commercialized events (U.S. elections, Summer Olympics) the next couple of years might just be “off” years until 2014 when the World Cup begins in Brazil and the Winter Olympics in Russia.

According to people who understand the marketing market, the decline in print ad spending in the U.S. is expected to fall $33.8 billion this year while the amount of money funneled into online advertising is expected to seesaw upwards to $39.5 billion. Online adverting spending already grew 23% in 2011 and this year’s speculation would see an additional growth of 23.3%. Actually, barring any paper robot revolution, print ads are looking to remain static from here on out.

If bar graphs aren’t your thing, eMarketer explains:

“Advertisers’ comfort level with integrated marketing is greater than ever, and this is helping more advertisers—and more large brands—put a greater share of dollars online,” said David Hallerman, eMarketer principal analyst.

The growing amount of time consumers spend with digital platforms and advertisers’ view of the internet as a more measurable medium—especially as the soft economy forces businesses to be more accountable with their ad dollars—are both significant contributors to digital’s growing footprint, Hallerman added.

TV advertising spending, however, forecasts sunnier skies if you’re looking to sell some ads. eMarketer estimates that spending on TV advertising is expected to grow 6.8% this year and will continue to generate growth over the next few years.

One reason eMarketer states that TV advertising will continue to grow is “a result of the rapid rise of digital advertising and brands’ continued confidence in television advertising, despite increasingly fragmented viewership and the soft economy.” Duh. The television market will always be a fertile ground to plant ads because people will never stop watching television. Hasn’t anybody ever seen Wall-E?

This year’s figures show that the average adult is spending an hour and five minutes on their mobile device, but only 26 minutes reading a newspaper and an even less amount of time reading magazines (18 minutes). Combined, traditional print media is taking up 44 minutes of your day, a full 21 minutes less than mobile activities.

Time spent on mobile devices is up a whopping 30% from last year. Generic “internet” time is also up, 7.7% to be exact from two hours and 35 minutes to two hours and 47 minutes.

TV and video still rules the average adult’s day, however. Despite a small drop from 2009 to 2010, time spent watching the tube increased from 264 minutes to 274 minutes in 2011.

It’s important to note that the “time spent doing X” data is not exclusive to X. “Time spent with each medium also includes all time spent with that medium, regardless of multitasking, so an hour of watching TV while simultaneously on the internet is considered an hour of each activity.” So the rise of time spent online could have something to do with the rise in time spent on mobile devices, and vice versa.

So what do we take from this? Really, this confirms the general notion that print media is falling off a bit. Of course, mobile time increasing doesn’t necessarily mean that people are forgoing the news to play Angry Birds all day. Mobile and internet use increases probably means that people are just choosing to get their news online.

It is also interesting to see the TV and video usage rise this year. Since the eMarketer data limited this to a “traditional television set,” this could mean that fears about everyone “cutting the cable cord” could be unjustified. Or, this rise could be attributed to increases in streaming video services’ availability, like Netflix and Hulu on Xbox and PS3 consoles.

Another interesting find from the study concerned ad dollars. Most of the U.S. ad spending shares correlate almost perfectly with the percentage of time the average adult spends on the specific media. For instance, TV takes up 42.5% of the average adult’s day, and it receives 42.2% of the ad dollars.

The only discrepancy is when you look at ad dollars spent on mobile and print. I’ll let you take a took for yourself, but it appears that ad spending might be a little behind the times.

While print is clearly not “dead,” this data confirms that people are moving in the opposite direction. Have you noticed that your mobile and internet consumption has cut into your print media consumption? Let us know in the comments.

If you watch a decent amount of Television, you have probably noticed a sharp increase in the mentions of Twitter on some of your favorite shows. Networks, citing the real-time draw of the Twitterverse, have decided to create buzz for their shows by encouraging social participation. And why not? Fans have a lot to say, and Twitter allows them to say it.

The level of Twitter integration into TV can vary, however.

It can be as basic as displaying a particular hashtag at the bottom of the screen (which is oftentimes linked to a promoted trend on Twitter). Some recent examples of this include ABC News’ coverage of the royal wedding, where they encouraged users to tweet about the event using the #RoyalWedding hashtag. They even had a “total tweet tracker” graphic displayed at the bottom of the screen during the live coverage.

MTV experimented with unique hashtags during its Video Music Awards. Sporadic graphics would pop up asking questions like “What #ifbiebermetgaga? Tweet Now!”

Comedy Central’s first annual Comedy Awards also tried the promoted hashtag deal by displaying #comedyawards at the bottom left-hand corner of the screen during the entire broadcast.

Networks can encourage Twitter use even more with segments devoted to fan tweets. Comedy Central’s Tosh.0 deploys this strategy, for example. During almost every episode he not only asks people to follow him on Twitter so that they can live chat the show with him, but many times he will ask a question of his Twitter followers. He’ll then choose some of the best responses and present them on the show.

Then you have NBC’s The Voice, which is focusing on social media more than any show in recent memory. The Voice has an all inclusive social media strategy that involves Twitter integration during the live performance shows as well as their own social media guru, Alison Haislip, dubbed the “in-show and online correspondent.”

The Voice has also stepped up and asked its hosts and judges to actively participate in Twitter discussion with fans. For instance, mentor Christina Aguilera didn’t even have a Twitter account before joining the show, but created one specifically at their behest. Other mentors Blake Shelton, Cee-lo Green and Adam Levine are all active on the service.

Not only do they communicate with fans before and after the show airs, but they also have their phones readied during commercial breaks to tweet during the live performance shows. This devotion to social media seems to have worked for The Voice at least, with over 200,000 tweets rolling in about the show just in the hour it was airing a recent episode.

Another example is with the long-running CBS reality show Survivor. In the fall of 2010, people we already tweeting about the show, as about 10,000 related tweets came in during the season premiere and about 15,000 came in during the season finale. But in the spring 2011 season, when host Jeff Probst began live-tweeting the episodes, Twitter activity related to Survivor skyrocketed. The show drew well over 20,000 related tweets for most of the episodes and about 54,000 tweets for its finale. Check out this graph courtesy of eMarketer

As you can see, by having Jeff Probst live-tweet the shows, the buzz on Twitter was substantially increased in every episode of the season.

While there is no doubt that a strong Twitter presence will benefit a show’s online buzz, the question, of course, is to what degree? How many of us are actually interacting with TV via social media on a consistent basis? The figures aren’t exactly mind-blowing, but they show success in the strategy.

In another data set, provided by eMarketer, it appears that only 43% of American internet users have engaged with Television using social media. That means that over half of the people have never used one of the promoted hashtags or even talked about their favorite shows to their followers.

And out of that 43% who have engaged, only 17% reported doing so while the show was airing. Is it still a little distracting to tweet about the shows you’re watching? Possibly.

Of course, there is also the issue of DVR and the downloading of shows. Can networks create enough buzz around social media interaction that they can keep viewers focused on a show at the same time? eMarketer’s Debra Williamson had this to say -

Given the amount of activity surrounding social media and TV, some level of convergence is inevitable. But trends like timeshifting pose a potential obstacle—there’s not much pleasure in sharing your thoughts about a show when you’re watching it after it first aired. For the networks, social media may be one of the last best ways to bring viewers back together again.

Twitter and TV has been a successful venture in most cases. Can the networks successfully “bring viewers back together again” with social media? It’s possible, but viewers are going to have to start engaging with TV and social media more during the programs rather than before or after.

It’s important to note that in this research, young people aged 18-34 were much more likely to engage in social media during their TV watching. Given a little time, it might be hard to find a show on the air without a hashtag gracing the bottom of the screen.

[Blake Shelton Photo Courtesy of Mashable]

Compared to Yahoo’s 2010 market share of 10.4 percent, that would represent a drop of about one-fifth (or 22.1 percent, to be more exact).  That’s pretty much a catastrophe given the short timespan being discussed.

Things aren’t exactly supposed to bounce back for Yahoo in 2012, either, with eMarketer predicting that the company’s share of the search ad market will hit a new low 6.5 percent.  Which would represent a similar year-over-year loss of 19.8 percent.

Google’s success is mostly to blame for these pessimistic estimates, as you probably guessed.  eMarketer thinks the search giant’s market share will rise from 71.4 percent in 2010 to 75.2 percent in 2011 to 76.6 percent in 2012.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is supposed to see some gains, with its share of the search ad market moving from 10.2 percent to 10.8 percent to 11.1 percent over the same timespan, but that’s not too dramatic.

On the bright side for Carol Bartz and Yahoo, either the average investor hasn’t yet seen eMarketer’s report, or he (or she) doesn’t much care.  Yahoo’s stock is up an impressive 3.79 percent so far today following its Search Direct announcement, even though the Dow and the Nasdaq have just risen 0.74 and 1.26 percent, respectively.

eMarkter estimates nearly 150 million Internet users will be active on social networks at least monthly this year, bringing the reach of such sites to 63.7 percent of the online population. By 2013, 164.2 million Americans will use social networks, or 67% of internet users.

While the social network audience has expanded to include a large number of users from Generation X, boomer and senior demographic, the youngest age groups are still the most active.

More than half of internet users ages 45 to 64 and over four out of five 12- to- 34-year-old online users will be regular social network users in 2011. The highest penetration level of all age groups will remain in the 18-to-24 age group, where 90% of internet users will use social networks this year.

“In 2011, social networks will need to cement their relationships with their users, particularly people ages 35 and older, in order to keep them engaged,” said Williamson.

“Marketers and media companies can contribute to this effort by creating compelling user experiences that make people want to stay connected to social networks so they can gain access to experiences, deals or content they may not be able to find anywhere else.”

The graph below shows the exact figures.  It seems the industry should see a 13.7 percent rise this year compared to last, and although things will slow down over time, a whopping 43.4 percent improvement is supposed to occur if you put the figures for 2011 and 2015 side by side.

Jeffrey Grau, a principal analyst at eMarketer principal, explained in a post, “Two major trends that will fuel online buying growth are mobile commerce and daily deal sites like Groupon.  Both opportunities are expected to have strong sales growth over the next five years.”

A significant increase in the online population will have an effect, too.  The post stated, “eMarketer estimates 87.5% of US internet users ages 14 and older, or 178.5 million people, will browse or research products online this year.  Of that group, 83% will make a purchase online, for a total of 148.1 million online buyers in 2011.  By 2015, 170.3 million people, or 76.3% of the online population, will make a purchase on the web.”

Now let’s just keep our fingers crossed that reality can live up to these predictions.  Groupon intends to do its part, at least, and PayPal also has big things planned.

Two other small but positive steps towards that end: the Dow and Nasdaq rose today by 1.39 percent and 0.79 percent, respectively.

This said, social media marketers should get up to speed on the adoption of geolocation tools, and review current insight on consumers attitudes and preferences when it comes to "checking in".  I hope to share e-marketer data from a few recent reports that will give us a snapshot of this space.

How Many Users are Checking In?

A study by SNL Kagan compared the recent increase in location based service users from 2009 to 2010 and found that it nearly tripled.  This, combined with the explosion of smart phone adoption, means that 2011 is bound to experience even stronger growth within geolocation tools.

This said, a study by Pew Internet and American Life Project in November 2010 puts this in perspective with the finding that only 4% of adult online users currently use location based services.  So while these applications are likely to grow by leaps and bounds – we still have a way to go in terms of mainstream adoption.

Where are users Checking In?

The following is an overview of the primary geolocation applications that users are using to check in, and the slight distinctions between them.  When the SNL Kagan ranked the geolocation apps based on registered users, Brightkite was the largest application with 5.9 million users, followed by Loopt at 4.0 million users and foursquare reporting at 3.6 million registered users. At the time of this study, Facebook Places was not taken into account and since then Brightkite has removed its "Check-In" functionality.

In comparison with these other applications, Facebook Places has a large potential to become a geolocation app of choice – simply due to the reach of the network compared to others. The network currently has over 200 million mobile users to jumpstart adoption of Facebook Places, and with a new introduction site for Facebook Deals, the network appears to be taking Facebook Places seriously.

Why are they Checking in?

As geolocation applications mature, users may be given more reasons or different incentives to check-in.  However, as it stands there are two studies that are helpful in shedding light on reasons why users would be motivated to use any of these services to check in.

The first study was conducted by Webroot in July and shows that 64% of US users would use geolocation apps to get informed, followed by meeting up with friends or to meet new people. The timing of this survey and these survey responses suggests this could have been influenced by early adopters in this space.

Another study, conducted by JiWire in November shows slightly different motivations.  As you can see from the chart below, of those that used a geolocation app – 29% stated the primary reason was to receive discounts and promotions.  This could be contributed to increased adoption of these applications (expanding beyond early adopters), or could be influenced by the increased availability of discounts and promotions from marketers beginning to enter this space.

What is particularly interesting with both of these studies is the small amount of users who check in simply to score points or receive badges.  It seems as if users may be looking for check-ins to provide a more straightforward utility – such as providing a discount, receiving more information, or letting others they care about know where they have been.

What do you think of these findings? Are you planning to employ location based applications for your brand this year? Please share in the comments below about the Foursquare to Facebook checkins post.

Originally published at IgniteSocialMedia.com

Obviously, that would represent a huge increase.  Then eMarketer thinks Twitter will achieve a repeat performance of sorts in 2012, upping its ad revenue by about $100 million again to $250 million.

To put that into perspective, eMarketer’s report tossed another couple social networking sites into the equation.  "Twitter revenues will still be small compared to those of Facebook, but by next year eMarketer expects Twitter to pull in more ad dollars than Myspace," the report stated.

Debra Aho Williamson, a principal analyst, also reasoned, "If Twitter can grow its user base and convince marketers of its value as a go-to secondary player to Facebook, it will succeed in gaining revenue.  In 2011 it must work overtime to give its early advertisers a positive experience."

So this next year or two could be a very exciting – and profitable – time for Twitter as long as things stay on track.

New-ish CEO Dick Costolo is almost sure to spend a lot of time courting advertisers to guarantee that’s the case.

That works out to a year-over-year increase of about 118 percent, which is rather remarkable.  Facebook’s good fortune isn’t supposed to end there, either, with eMarketer forecasting that its ad revenue will hit $5.74 billion in 2012.

That should be possible in large part due to overseas growth.  As the graph below shows, eMarketer thinks spending there will eventually match U.S. spending, making for a much faster expansion, percentage-wise.

eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson even wrote in the report, "If Facebook can continue to increase its global user base and boost the amount of revenue it generates per user, it could even surpass these forecasts."

U.S. social network ad revenue on the whole is supposed to increase, too, by the way.  eMarketer predicted it’ll rise from $1.99 billion in 2010 to $3.08 billion in 2011 to $3.93 billion in 2012.